The Summer Without Solace
by Victoria LeRoux
Summary: He's not sure why it takes him three days to break. Harry mourns Sirius alone, summer before 6th year.


_Title: The Summer Without Solace_

_Summary: He's not sure why it takes him three days to break. Harry mourns Sirius, summer before 6th year._

_Addition A/N: Nothing really. I had no title ideas. I know AQOH and OT readers probably hate me, but I'm actually posting this to see if the email alert belatedness is fixed yet._

_And please review._

_Summer Without Solace_

When he watches the castle face, he wonders why Hogwarts has never been a place to end the school year on a good note. He reflects on this for a while, sometimes adding into the conversation when needed, but mostly thinking. He felt a momentary happiness at the loyalty of the DA, but that faded as he sank into thoughts again, only occassionally paying attention to the Weasley's and Hermione's antics.

But the castle's faded into the background, and the train is stopping, Harry Potter realizes at last. It's nice to see the Order of the Phoenix cares, but when he gets out of the train and into the Dursley's car, he's alone again.

Alone with the Dursleys at least, which is even worse then being just alone.

Get gets out of the car and wonders if this will happen every year until Voldemort's gone. He doesn't speak to the Dursleys, but instead trudges to the small second bedroom on the second floor of number 4, Privet Drive. That is how he decides to stay. It's too painful to see the curtain in the kitchen fluttering out of the eye, too gut-wrenching to smile at the cheerful sight of number 5's children laughing and frolicking with the happy, big, black dog they had adopted while he was gone during the school year. It was too provoking to see those glowing blue balls- _so much like the blasted prophecy that led to all of this-_ that number two puts out in the front yard...

It's just too unfair to see the small reminders that Sirius- _his only family, the one that had stayed by him- is_ gone forever, gone because of a stupid mistake and a stupid veil.

He dreams of him too, sometimes. He sees the face plastered to a poster, laughing as tears stream down his face. Harry sees his godfather's soul nearly sucked out by a Dementor. He sees the small moments, a quick hug here, a flashing smile there to remind him he's not alone.

_But he is. Because Sirius is gone, swallowed by a small scrap of fabric._

No matter the memory, no matter the dream, he still sees the ghost of a smile slipping from his godfather's face as he slides into the veil before he wakes, always crying.

It takes three days of small reminders- _constant reminding, constant prods to yearn for the atonement he wants-, _three days of dreams -_the memories are all he has left, but they are refusing to leave him alone-_ before Harry Potter finally breaks. It isn't a big thing that hammers the last nail in the coffin, but instead the old package he finds buried under his floorboards with a simple note attached shatters him into "itsy,_ bitsy_," -_Bellatrix's mind is haunting him again, haunting him with dreams and nightmares of a cruel, high laugh-_ pieces.

_Give these to Hedwig for me. -Sirius _

Seven simple words.

It is that kind token for his owl that causes Harry to stop in his tracks and drop to the group as he holds that small, simple note to his chest.

He cried then, the lonely not-quite sixteen-year-old Boy-Who-Lived, the Chosen one, and the prophesied savior of the entire _damn_ Wizarding World.

Harry Potter had never had dreams of fairy tales, but as he cried along but for a snowy owl in the small second bedroom, he wishes that someone would realize he was nothing but an orphaned teenager that misses his godfather. He wishes that someone would see that he wasn't just the leader of Dumbledore's Army, or the four time defeater of Voldemort. He wishes that the world didn't see him as anything more than just another face lurking in the crowd, or more then another kid trying to not fail his OWLS and NEWTS. He wishes he could have a family that loved him, a life where he was happy, but he knows it's never going to happen.

Always though, he wishes he could be _"Harry, just Harry."_


End file.
